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- What does the user need to know or have before doing the task? They need to be logged in, and know which item they want to save.
- Where is the task performed? Either on a desktop/laptop, or on a phone browser.
- What is the environment like? Noisy, dirty, dangerous? It could be, if the user is on the go with their smartphone or tablet.
- How often is the task performed? This depends on the user’s profile; some may do it all the time, others only once or twice per session. It depends on how willing they are to categorize information. Some people use similar features (like bookmarks or the "Read it later" feature of browser addons like Readability or Instapaper) commonly, others not at all; and this mentality will carry over.
- What are its time resource constraints? It should be fast, no more than a few seconds. The user does not have time to read the article in question now, so it is possible they may also not have a lot of time to save it. Even if they have time, they will want to get back to articles they are interested in as soon as they can; reading is more fun than organizing.
- How is the task learned? The user can learn it by recognition; the interface should be familiar (like existing methods of archiving information, like folders in operating systems, or tags in Gmail)
- What can go wrong? The user could save the wrong item by accident (in which case they could delete it later). The user could forget to save something they want to save (and they could recover by using the filtering feature to find it again).
- Who else is involved in the task? No one else in this case.
- What subtasks are there? Selecting the item to save, categorizing it into an appropriate area, and finding it to read again later.
Initial Setup & Management of Information Sources
Users will need to be able to specify what information they want to manage using our interface, preferably as quickly and easily as their existing techniques. When discussing this task during GR1 feedback, it seems debatable whether or not this is an essential task. However, we consider this task essential, since the an important aspect of our application how we will give users more control over the frequency and duration in which they see updates from their information sources (compared to their current information source managers).
- The challenge in this task is how to present a wide variety of options to the user quickly and efficiently
- The user could get confused by the options
- There could be too many options, causing the user to doubt their initial goals (do I really want updates only once per day? What about once per 2 days? once per hour? etc.)
- This task will allow users to add new information sources, as well as manage their existing sources
- This task should be fast and easy for the user
- As a mobile app, the user will not want to spend a long time setting up their sources (this task should be on the order of seconds to complete)
- We will leverage identity-related affordances from their existing information-source managers to speed up the process
- This task should be very flexible, allowing the user to easily add and remove information sources at any time, anywhere, on the fly
- The user should be able to cancel the process at any time with no negative consequences
- The task should not be time sensitive, and allow for the user to get distracted or have time to look up necessary information (like passwords for other information source managers)
Non-Essential Tasks
We simply list these tasks, since they are not essential to the problem our application is trying to solve.
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